Challenges: Drabble and Trail of Thunder
by Splash and Misty
Summary: Two challenges for Raindrops on Feathers' forum, the Clan of Fading Mist. Please join us. We're a young but extremely amazing forum just waiting for some more active members to join us.
1. Drabble

Night was falling. The stars were coming out. Yet something else troubled the tiny little kit, something that chilled the small thing to her bones.

It not a thing- instead, it was more of… a thought. A feeling. A haunting.

It was the constant knowledge that the cats who had killed her parents were now after another target- her.

The kit shivered, pressed against the ferns. She couldn't hide forever. Soon she would be dead, murderer alongside her parents.

And for what reason?

Why was she wished dead?

All the little kit really knew was one thing-

She was hunted.


	2. Trail of Thunder

**Trail of Thunder:**

 _Quick, quick, cross the road._

 _Don't get killed, you're a young cat still._

 _Quick, quick, cross the road._

 _Avoid the monsters and don't look back._

Palepaw shivered, pressing herself against Snowpaw's shivering shape. Her white-furred sister had huge, scared eyes as she stared out at the massive stretch of black stone. The pale cream she-cat herself was trembling with fear, ears flat against her head in her terror.

Monsters roared across the thunderpath, their harsh, unnatural colors gleaming in the sun. Metallic reds and blues and blacks and so many other colors flashed by on huge back paws that churned at the stone. A few yellow and white stripes crossed the road, seemingly like borders as for the monsters never crossed the lines except for a few times.

The sun was only a few mouse-lengths away from the horizon ahead of them; soon, night would fall and the two apprentices and their mentors would be stuck in the darkness. They had to cross before the stars came out- well they could see where they were going.

Stoneclaw paced the side of the thunderpath, his claws raking the dirt in anticipation. The large gray tabby tom had narrowed eyes and a lashing tail, and he stood stiffly as he stared out at the stretch of gray stone.

"Come on," he called. "Let's cross before the kits all become warriors, okay?"

Redfern glanced at the gray tabby mentor, her dark green eyes narrowing in thought. "Stoneclaw, what did you tell your apprentice about crossing the thunderpath?''

"The usual," Stoneclaw responded mildly.

Snowpaw nodded, eyes shining. "He taught me loads," she exclaimed.

Staring at her sister, Palepaw shuffled her feet. What if she didn't know enough? What if she got herself killed?

 _Quick, quick, cross the road._

 _Don't get killed, you're a young cat still._

 _Quick, quick, cross the road._

 _Avoid the monsters and don't look back._

 _Wait, wait, she's going to die._

 _Stop your travels now before you lose her to the stars._

 _Wait, wait, she's going to die._

 _Don't just stand there- save her please!_

Palepaw stepped forwards, forcing herself to stop shaking. "I know lots as well!" she mewed. "Look, I'll show you!"

The thunderpath was unusually quiet; Palepaw charged across it, her eyes fixed on the horizon. A monster roared by just after she made it to safety.

"Well done!" Redfern yowled over the growls of passing monsters. "But next time wait until I tell you to go!"

Redfern and Stoneclaw both crossed safely, leaving Snowpaw all alone on the other side. Finally, it was her sister's turn to cross.

Snowpaw padded confidently over to the thunderpath and trotted onto it. Suddenly, as she was halfway through, a monster came roaring down the stone, golden eyes glowing.

Freezing, Snowpaw watched as the monster neared her. Stoneclaw tensed, preparing to launch himself onto the thunderpath.

He did so, bounding with long, confident strides.

Two yowls broke the cool dusk air.

The monster passed without a word, leaving the two broken and shattered bodies of Snowpaw and Stoneclaw on the cold gray stone. They were dead. Forever.

 _Quick, quick, cross the road._

 _Don't get killed, you're a young cat still._

 _Quick, quick, cross the road._

 _Avoid the monsters and don't look back._

 _Wait, wait, she's going to die._

 _Stop your travels now before you lose her to the stars._

 _Wait, wait, she's going to die._

 _Don't just stand there- save her please!_

 _Dead, dead, my sister is._

 _The pain is great but I don't care._

 _Dead, dead, my sister is._

 _And now I have to cross the road again._


End file.
